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Monthly Archives: June 2011

I hope you are doing well. Following please find a list of 17 new e-books that we have recently uploaded on APNA web. If you would like to add any book to APNA Web’s book section, please send us a soft copy with the image of book title.

Let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.

Please also note that all of the Punjabi music on APNA web page – thousands of songs – can now be downloaded as MP3 files. Please check:

Cuban socialism adapts for the futureA video presentation by Roberta Wood, Secretary-Treasurer, Communist Party USA, along with a current student at Latin American School of Medicine in Havana

Dear Friend,

Please join us for this exciting video presentation and discussion. Roberta has traveled to Cuba several times in the past few years and will give an update on the exciting new changes being implemented to renew and improve socialism on the island. She and a guest student from the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana will overview the large and small reforms adopted at the recent Congress of the Cuban Communist Party and discuss how the Cuban people are responding to the changes. The presentation will discuss new opportunities for solidarity with the Cuban people and ending the 50-year U.S. blockade.

Questions will follow the presentation.

Tuesday, June 218:00 – 9:00pm Eastern

Watch live video on Ustream or at CPUSA.org
or listen in by phone. Call (605) 475-4850 and dial 1053538# after the prompt.(Check Ustream to make sure your computer is compatible)

It is hard to believe that Pakistan was once a gentle country. It is even harder to believe that some of the most wonderful people lived here. All that seems like a misty memory which has little relevance as you face the day’s first rude slaps. A friend passed me an interesting short article about the Anglo-Indians who lived and worked in what is now India and Pakistan. The Anglos are long gone swallowed up by the mists of time, driven out from here to fend for themselves. But in their extinction lies a bigger tragedy.

The Anglo Indians were fun people. But more than the singular expertise they brought to the jobs that became traditionally their forte, they added a swing, vibrancy and a sheer joy of living spirit to our society that in many ways epitomised the new, fresh spirit that was Pakistan. That was then. Now it’s a fading sepia tone picture. Those of us who grew up with them, watched with considerable sadness as family after family left this country to go and live in alien climes. There was nothing left for them. They were wise in retrospect. Look at our bestiality towards our minorities. But while the Anglo Indians were here, they gave us a unique gift. The joy of living and of being alive.

The Anglos were a British creation – some say a hideous British blunder. Although the British Empire at one point held absolute power in over 52 countries there was only one undisputed ‘jewel’ in the royal crown. India. It was part of their policy to protect this jewel from within as well and so began a policy of encouraging British males to marry Indian women – Anglo Indians who would intrinsically be at home with British mannerisms and always do the ‘pucca’ thing yet be more English than Indian in their thinking, a defensive ring around British interests and way of life. Many experts believe that had it not been for them, the British Empire in India would have collapsed. Ethnically engineered, they were the only micro-minority community ever to be defined in a country’s constitution and yet the irony was that they were a race without a country!

The Anglos were no ordinary people. In India and later Pakistan, they virtually ran the railways, post & telegraph, police, customs, education, nursing, healthcare, import/export, shipping, tea, coffee & tobacco plantations, coal mines and gold reserves. Thus Anglos became great teachers, nurses, priests and doctors and the girls, debonair, confident, skilful became the best executive secretaries, special assistants and office managers. There was no one to match them.

But it was their colourful and vibrant approach to everyday life that was so infectious about them. Like all small communities, they segregated into enclaves that were all their own. The Anglo-Indians were truly spirited people, fired with a zest to work and party hard. The boys were typically razor sharp, cutting deals that would invariably begin with lines like, ‘I say bugga you know what happened? That bugga Tony, man he screwed me real good, bugga took my damn cash bugga and disappeared.’ And the reply, ‘You don’t say bugga,’ and ‘I’m tellin’ ya, ask Fernandez man – Tony rogered him too man,’ ‘Say swear,’ ‘Swear bugga this Tony cat, man he’s somethin’ else,’ and on and on went the stories. There were always stories.

The Anglos were superb musicians and dancers. The floors (toba, toba) were full on Saturday nights, Sunday afternoons, jam sessions – and other handy occasions – sometimes they didn’t even need to have a reason. At the hangouts, Karachi particularly and Lahore catching up all the time and Sam’s in Murree, the Anglo Indians could set a floor on fire as they jived, jitterbugged, rocked & rolled, swung, waltzed or shook sensuously to Latin-flavoured mind blowing melodies. And it was on the dance floors that you saw girls who could break your heart with just a look, hair tossing, laughing their pretty heads off as adept and handsome male escorts took them through the paces.

The Anglos congregated in special areas within the cities where they made warm, inviting homes. In Lahore, they were behind The Indus Hotel on The Mall, in the environs of the railway colony and in residential areas where family names like D’souzas were as common as Mohammad Iqbals today. In Karachi names like Preedy Street, Elphi were synonymous with them. Wherever they were – they were not very affluent, but you were always welcomed with a cold beer, a quick shot if it was nippy and at Xmas time, the special cakes made to order with each family guarding its secret recipe passed from generation to generation. There was the Burt Institute, the Railway Colony to name just two and then there were the clubs and nightspots. In Karachi there were many and even more there were the musicians – row upon row who filled these and played jazz, rock even fusion – or whatever you fancied. The bands grew on trees. The Strollers, Francisco Boys, The Bugs, The Cossacks, Willie Po and the Boys, The Incrowd (inspired by that superb hit from Ramsey Lewis and quite the rage then), The Drifters, The Panthers, The Talisman Set (see their group picture, faded and blurry and you could mistake them for The Jackson Five), Bloody What’s the Matter? (Yes there was a group called just that), The Keynotes, Flintstone, The Fatah Brothers, Captivators and the Saints of Rawalpindi (now surely replaced by the devils incarnate).

Nightclubs with foreign acts especially in Karachi were the rage. Agents, artists, con men, musicians, strippers, belly dancers all arrived and exited at this hustling port city. Jazz legends like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Byrd, Benny Carter, Quincy Jones (who gave Michael Jackson that memorable beat heard in ‘Billie Jean’ and who was to give MJ some great musical direction) – they all came here and they loved Karachi and this country called Pakistan, where there was hardly any crime worth mentioning and nobody knew how to use bombs leave alone the killer guns. ‘If someone fired a shot in midair in Golimar,’ muses a gentleman from those days, ‘the word would spread through Karachi like fire.’ But that was a Karachi that was perhaps just a million not burgeoning at all ends with an estimated 14 million now. And although someone recalls that ‘the city was planned differently but grew differently’, Karachi started to disintegrate before our eyes in the 70s.

The 1972 laws enforced by ZAB to please the fundos broke the spirit of all of us, particularly the Anglo Indians. Bars, discos, clubs all shut down in fear. Suddenly hosts of musicians and other artists had no livelihood. ‘Tolerance went up in smoke,’ recalls one sad person. Came 1979 and the evil Zia and the coup de grace forced the Anglos to escape, migrate anywhere they could go. They left by the droves, never to come back. The clubs died, the dance floors uprooted, the many services they offered fell by the wayside. In driving out this small community, we dug our own graves. We rapidly became soulless, grey, hypocritical and boring. With them gone, an integral part of decent civilian life was snuffed out. Guns replaced guitars. The scorched landscape that we inherited, now mocks us. Laughter has changed to anguish. Pakistan may be a ‘hard country’, but it is also a barren and desolate land. One gentleman of the fabled 60s sums it all up in one line: ‘Those days are gone. They will not come back.’ Quite an epitaph wouldn’t you agree?

While many organizations and individuals were busy in organizing chabeel of cold water, sweetened milk or other drinks on the occasion of Martyrdom of fifth guru, Guru Arjun Dev Ji, Sukrit Trust, an NGO, organized a chabeel of books.

As many as 20000 copies of the book ‘Sukhan Di Mani (Sukhmani Sahib Swal-Jwab)’ both in Punjabi & Hindi were distributed free of cost at over 20 bus stands & railway stations throughout Punjab. People evinced keen interest in this novel gesture. The books have been sponsored by S. Jatinder Singh Uppal from Sydney, Australia.

A pledge form was also filled by many devotees who promised to read the book and comprehend the message of Sukhmani Sahib.

Amanjot Singh, an employee of PRTC, overjoyed by receiving the book said, “Now a days, our lives are full of tension. Books like this which show you the path of happiness, surly are the best gift & best sewa.”

“We spend crores on cold water chabeels on one day only. This helps but for a short time. Chabeels of gurbani books will be a life time enjoyment. I thank the sponsor of this novel idea”, said the Jasmeen Kaur, a middle age housewife from Pathankot. The volunteers of Sukrit, distributed the book chabeel in all the coaches of passing trains at Ludhiana Railway station throughout the day.

The 200 pages book has been printed beautifully. It contains 48 question answers on Sukhmani Sahib, meanings of selected words, detailed translation of bani, as well as selected messages from this eternal composition of Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji.

A self motivated initiative called Women’s Action for Ecology (WAE), led by
a movement based group called Kheti Virasat Mission (KVM) has taken on a
massive task to revive traditional seeds, traditional foods and
farming which is non-chemical, non-commercial and uphold a holistic
world view in acquaintance with nature.

This also includes learning how to make and use of bio pesticides. They
are now in search of seeds similar to the local millet varieties that
had once thrived in Punjab. This process has begun in all regions of
Punjab including Majha, Malwa, Doaba, Puadh and Shivaliks and slowly
but surely a lot of lost or forgotten traditional knowledge is being
revived.

It sure is a beginning, but a very critical one. An attempt that is
seeking to break away from the shackles of the predominant
agricultural policies. It is an effort that is engaging with a vision
that is core to natural farming practices. In the discussions in
Punjab, it’s peeking out now, yet again…demanding answers from the
closets of disinterest.

The results of this initiative are quite applauding as many women have
grown surplus food in their kitchen garden and would like to preserve
them in one form or the another. Therefore, we would like to invite
women who are voluntarily interested in imparting cooking skills and
training to our women workers for 2 days as how to preserve the
food/Spices/Herbs by making Pickles, Jams, Sharbats and other eatable
items with a purpose to be sold in the market. We would highly
appreciate the voluntary participation of women in the effort to
preserve the food stock.

For further Queries and Participation, Please contact Amanjot Kaur,
WAE Co-ordinator at 08968024314.

Supreme Court has announced, any person who meets road accidents can be taken to nearby hospital immediately. Hospital must not ask for police report to admit him,its doctors’ duty to do First-aid. Police can be informed later. Pls spread this message by sharing on your wall .. It will help us all…!!!